I can hardly say just what my feelings were at this moment. I
know that I was not surprised. I was frightened and yet I was
not frightened. Something in me shrank back in a sickening
terror; but _I_, the real I, was not frightened. I knew that
this was my sister, and that there could be no reason why I
should be frightened of her, because she loved me still, as she
had always done. Further than this I was not conscious of any
coherent thought, either of wonder or attempt at reasoning.
Hester paused when she came to within a few steps of me. In the
moonlight I saw her face quite plainly. It wore an expression I
had never before seen on it--a humble, wistful, tender look.
Often in life Hester had looked lovingly, even tenderly, upon me;
but always, as it were, through a mask of pride and sternness.
This was gone now, and I felt nearer to her than ever before. I
knew suddenly that she understood me. And then the
half-conscious awe and terror some part of me had felt vanished,
and I only realized that Hester was here, and that there was no
terrible gulf of change between us.
Hester beckoned to me and said,
"Come."
I stood up and followed her out of the garden. We walked side by
side down our lane, under the willows and out to the road, which
lay long and still in that bright, calm moonshine. I felt as if
I were in a dream, moving at the bidding of a will not my own,
which I could not have disputed even if I had wished to do so.
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